Here's one of my newer connections, nephew Mason. Even though he's exhausted his father, he's still cuddling up while watching "Adventure Time" with the rest of us.I had a wonderful time talking to Shaun Duke and Jen Zink of the Skiffy and Fanty Show last week. The podcast is up here. If you enjoy it and use iTunes, show them a little love with a rating on there.
A reason the interview wa so enjoyable was that they asked really interesting, incisive questions about the stories in Near + Far, in that way a writer desires and dreads at the same time, where they’re seeing some of your psyche’s underpinnings shaping the stories that you create. I’ve been mulling over some of those questions since then, and was thinking about one on the bus home the other day.
They pointed to many of the stories being about the need for connection, with characters like the protagonist of “Angry Rose’s Lament” being addicted to a drug that makes him feel connected, the hero of “Therapy Buddha” projecting all his needs onto a toy, or Sean Marksman’s ultimate fate in “Seeking Nothing.” Going through other stories in my head, I see the theme of connection coming up in various forms throughout. I think that’s a basic human need, one born of monkey roots, an instinct to be with the other monkeys.
Connection’s been something I’ve sought throughout my life. I was a brainy and isolated child, and still am to some extent. NowadaysI work in a profession that requires stretches of isolation in order to produce. So I value my time spent with other people, and particularly writers and likeminded people. I know that I’m happiest when I’ve got a group of interesting and lovely friends doing wonderful things and setting the world afire, just as I know that without some of them I would be a much different person.
Still, it’s not something I’m alone in exploring, as a writer. Human connections — gone awry, gone swimmingly, mistaken or acute, agape or philia or eros — are what fiction is made of.
At a panel at this year’s Worldcon, a fellow panelist got quite huffy when I mentioned the idea that fiction teaches us about being human. He found the idea outmoded and far too 19th century. Perhaps the divergence lay in our conceptions of what the word “teach” means — and perhaps “demonstrates” or “discusses” would be a better verb there, but I don’t know. We’re all just flailing about trying to fit into our own particular monkey packs and we’re watching the other monkeys to see what they’re doing and what we’re supposed to be doing. Don’t we read fiction to find some of that information? Perhaps we don’t say to ourselves, “I will be like character X in Book Y,” but we do think about heroes. We try to be better human beings sometimes because we have their examples. Or perhaps to avoid whatever fictional fate they fell prey to.
So, yeah. Connections. In fiction, the connections between characters, the way they choose to interpret word or gesture or telepathic scream. In the absence of human (or perhaps, intelligent, rather than human) connection, they make imaginary ones, creating fiction within fiction. That’s one of the things I’m looking at in the book I’m currently working on, focusing on the connections between the main character and the beings around her. It’s let me plunge into her head in a way I haven’t before, and I’m enjoying the heck out of it, connecting with her.
As a professional student of humanity, I agree with you that fiction – story, really – does teach us about being human, and that we seek it out for that reason. If anything we need it more than in the 19th century. We never stop because we are living in a constantly shifting environment as our technology changes the ways we interact and bring us into increasingly larger social spheres yet isolate at the same time.
I recently read a great book called ‘The Storytelling Animal’ by Jonathan Gottschall. He lays out all the best neurological and evolutionary arguments for our drive to tell and consume story in a compelling way (he uses story).
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Travel Update, Mid-August
I've taken a ton of pictures along the way, but haven't had a lot of time to sit down and go through them all. I'll post some of the best ones when I get the chance.Huzzah! We drove across America and it was an awesome trip, with lots of visits with good friends and relatives. Today we head off to NYC for a few days, after some time with the godkids, and sometime next week we head off to Costa Rica, where we have a lovely place on the beach secured for a month and the price is great because it’s rainy season. I’ve been practicing my Spanish and getting ready.
The major frustration of the road has been trying to get time to write. I find it takes me a while to get started and in the flow when I write, and for those of you writing in scraps and odd bits of time snatched from kids and jobs and other concerns – I don’t know how you do it, but I salute you. I’ve got a story simmering and partially written, which I really want to send out as the next Patreon installment, so I need to get butt in chair and finish writing it in the next couple of days. Contemporary horror, set in Western Kansas. (I know my cousins will appreciate the last bit.)
Here’s a tiny bit to whet people’s appetites. If you want to read it when it’s done, you’ll need to support the Patreon campaign. 😉
Penny saw the sign coming east along route 70. Yellow letters on a background the color of drying blood. 50 MILES – PRAIRIE DOG TOWN ““ WORLD’S LARGEST PRAIRIE DOG ““ BISON ““ KIT FOXES ““ BADGERS ““ FIVE-LEGGED STEER. Another sign followed it: BRING THE KIDS. GIFT SHOP!
She suppressed the urge to snort and glanced at the rental car’s gauges. She would have rather flown, but driving, she could carry gear with her the airlines wouldn’t have allowed past. Or would have arrested her for, much more likely. She might look like an ordinary, slightly heavy middle-aged woman, but the contents of her suitcase were suited to a world-class assassin.
Which she was, of course.
I’ve also been working on some nonfiction, including mulling over some posts on things like writer etiquette, self-publishing, and the idea of writing for “exposure” (which I am not a big fan of, and will explain why.) Stay tuned for some of those in the next couple of months.
In Celebration of International Women's Day: Feminist Futures Storybundle
I’m so pleased that my Feminist Futures Storybundle came out in time for International Women’s Day! This bundle celebrates some of the best science fiction being written by women today, gathering a wide range of outlooks and possibilities, including an anthology that gives you a smorgasbord of other authors you may enjoy!
This is my favorite bundle so far, although I’m already assembling one in my head for next year that will be even better and more diverse. Why? Because I used to work in the tech industry, and there I saw how diversity could enhance a team and expand its skillset. Women understand that marketing to women is something other than coming up with a lady-version of a potato chip designed not to crunch or a pink pen sized for our dainty hands. Diversity means more perspectives, and this applies to science fiction as well. I am more pleased with this bundle than any I’ve curated so far.
In her feminist literary theory classic How to Suppress Women’s Writing, science fiction author Joanna Russ talked about the forces working against the works of women (and minority) writers. A counter to that is making a point of reading and celebrating such work, and for me this bundle is part of that personal effort, introducing you to some of my favorites. Ironically enough this bundle idea started with a particular book, Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin, that fell through at the last minute sadly “” but that’s all the more reason to do this theme again next year for Women’s History month again. 😉 But don’t wait till then – you can find the Elgin book currently available online and it’s worth the read.
And in the name of expanding one’s knowledge and enjoyment of women writing SF, the majority of these books are first volumes of series, and I hope if you enjoy them, you’ll find the others as well as telling other people about them. The Kirstein series is the only one where not all the books are available; she’s currently working on book five and plans seven altogether. Many of them are independently or small press published, showing the depth and quality of work such publishing venues can yield.
I come to the task of writing these notes having just finished reading through a slush pile for an anthology I’m editing, If This Goes On, devoted to political science fiction. Some of the themes there are echoed in some of the works here, and it’s been interesting to note the resonances. Other books in the bundle are more lighthearted or escapist. I hope everyone will find at least a few they enjoy, and that many readers will join me in thinking they’re all swell.
I’ll be doing some video interviews with authors about their books – look for the hashtag #thefutureisfeminist on social media or subscribe to my Youtube channel or newsletter to make sure you get notified when they appear!
Here’s the bundle participants:
Athena Andreadis has produced multiple anthologies focused on women writers and I’ve had the pleasure of being in her anthology The Other Half of the Sky. Its sequel To Shape The Dark focuses on female scientists doing science in ways that move outside the traditional modes. This solid, intriguing anthology holds more than a few creative, inventive stories that you will enjoy.
L. Timmel Duchamp’s Alanya to Alanya is the first volume of her Marq’ssan cycle. Like the Gussoff book, it’s set in a near future Seattle and world that has become fiercely divided by gender, visited by aliens with very different ideas about such things. Political and intricate, this book pulls no punches in setting up a world that echoes that of The Handmaid’s Tale while remaining a unique vision. DuChamp is also a literary scholar and publisher; her Aqueduct Press is publishing great stuff.
Caren Gussoff’s The Birthday Problem is set in a near-future Seattle where a nannite plague has overtaken the world. It deals with issues of connection and mathematics in a multiple point of view narrative that showcases her ability with evocative, illuminating prose, and contains figures like former-WNBA center Didi VanNess and The King of Seattle, an ex-rockstar now living in one of Seattle’s iconic landmarks, as well as thirty cats named Ira.
M.C.A. Hogarth’s Spots the Space Marine features a military heroine who’s also a parent in a book that has aptly been called “Pollyanna meets Starship Troopers”. If you’re not familiar with Hogarth’s work, I urge you to check it out. If you’re a fan of furry fiction, you’ll particularly enjoy her Pelted Universe works, but another favorite of mine is Black Blossom.
Happy Snak by Nicole Kimberling is a fresh and funny romp detailing the travails of running a fast-food enterprise in space as unhappy proprietor Gaia Jones finds her life growing increasingly complicated. My only sorrow is that there isn’t a sequel, because Happy Snak is comfort food of the highest grade,
The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein is the first in a fantastic series by the same name. This is a terrific book with a landscape that fascinates and a protagonist exploring that world and its challenges carefully and methodically, to the best of her efforts. I was delighted to be able to secure this book for the bundle.
Louise Marley’s The Terrorists of Irustan deals with a world where women’s roles are severely limited “” and details the struggle as they begin to fight back. Louise writes under a variety of names, including Cate Campbell, Louisa Morgan, and Toby Bishop, every time with an elegance and empathy that is showcased in this early book of heres.
Vonda N. McIntyre is a favorite writer of mine, and here I’ve stuffed a little extra value in the bundle for you with not one but four books in this Starfarers omnibus edition from the Book View Cafe. When a group of scientists find their alien contact project has been cancelled, they go to extreme measures to keep it going. Also: intelligent squidmoths. Does it get better than intelligent squidmoths?
Kristine Smith is working in military sf and doing it with panache and grace in the Jani Kilian series. Tight and fast, Code of Conduct will pull you into one of my favorite series, with a set of characters and fascinating worldbuilding that will leave you scrambling to find the next volume in this five book series.
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2 Responses
As a professional student of humanity, I agree with you that fiction – story, really – does teach us about being human, and that we seek it out for that reason. If anything we need it more than in the 19th century. We never stop because we are living in a constantly shifting environment as our technology changes the ways we interact and bring us into increasingly larger social spheres yet isolate at the same time.
I recently read a great book called ‘The Storytelling Animal’ by Jonathan Gottschall. He lays out all the best neurological and evolutionary arguments for our drive to tell and consume story in a compelling way (he uses story).
I’ll have to look for that, it sounds fascinating.